'It's pretty unfair that they should get off with no consequences'

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SEATTLE -- A high school student who was hit and left for dead in a Poulsbo ditch is making great strides in her recovery, but she's still waiting for the person who nearly killed her to face justice.

It was Friday night two weeks ago that 18-year-old Shelly Martin was walking with a friend on Pioneer Way in Poulsbo when her life changed forever.

"When the car hit me I just busted open to the bone," Martin said from her hospital room at Harborview Medical Center.

The impact threw Martin into a ditch, where she very nearly died from her injuries. Despite the severity of those injuries, Martin said she remembers quite a bit from that night. What she doesn't remember much of is the car that hit her.

"I would try to get up and I noticed that my whole lower body was completely numb and I couldn't feel anything," she said.

Paramedics eventually flew her to Harborview, where she has since undergone seven surgeries. Martin has had a lot of time to think about that horrible night, and she's come up with her own theory about the person who hit her.

"I'm thinking that they were probably pretty intoxicated," she said. "And so after they hit us, they were probably thinking in their head, 'I just killed two little girls.'"

Doctors told Martin that most people would not have survived the types of injuries she had, but the high school senior doesn't give up easy and is now ready to leave the hospital.

What's left now is for the stranger who hit her to come forward and accept responsibility.

"They made a very big impact on my life," Martin said. "It's pretty unfair that they should get off with no consequences."

Investigators think Martin may have been hit by a pickup truck. She thinks it was white or silver. Her friend wasn't hit by the vehicle, but did suffer minor injuries.

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